Sri Lanka Cricket’s draft constitution is now before the Legal Draftsman’s Department and other government legal authorities, and will go to Cabinet once that review is complete, the SLC Transformation Committee said.
Committee Chairman Eran Wickramaratne said the draft was finalised after extensive consultation with stakeholders, and that the committee had examined all submissions before submitting it. Full consensus was difficult in a process involving so many perspectives, he said, but the committee supports the principle of an elected administration and wants elections held under a stronger and more transparent framework.
Wickramaratne said the committee has now completed its own responsibilities and that the remaining stages are governed by legal and parliamentary procedure, over which it has no direct control.
The route still to run
The committee set out the sequence for the first time in this level of detail. Cabinet approval must come first, after which the constitution is published in the Gazette and presented to Parliament. Citizens will then have an opportunity to challenge it or make representations before the courts, and the Supreme Court will issue its determination. Only after the proposal returns to Parliament for approval does it become law.
Wickramaratne said a timeframe can be estimated but the pace of those institutional steps is not in the committee’s hands.
Committee member and former captain Kumar Sangakkara said the committee has stayed in close contact with the International Cricket Council throughout, and has had considerable support from the world governing body. ICC regulations require SLC to return to a democratically elected administration, he said, and the constitution is designed to create the framework for that transition.
Sangakkara said the objective goes beyond holding an election, describing the aim as a structure built on accountability and transparency in which everyone involved in running the sport is answerable for their decisions. The committee is working to move the document through Cabinet and Parliament as quickly as possible, he said, and hopes the process can advance in the coming months.
Why the timetable now matters
The reform has acquired a deadline it did not have a month ago. LankaNewz reported on 30 August that Sri Lanka lost the hosting rights to the inaugural ICC Women’s Champions Trophy, scheduled for February 2027, over the continuing dispute about government involvement in running the board. The ICC has also barred SLC representatives from its board meetings since the committee took over.
The nine-member committee was appointed in April after the previous administration under Shammi Silva resigned and the Sports Ministry took control of the board. It handed a draft to the Sports Minister on 28 July proposing to cut the board from 20 members to 14 and reduce the number of clubs with voting rights to 39.
Neither Wickramaratne nor Sangakkara gave a target date for Cabinet approval or for elections, and neither addressed the lost tournament directly. The committee has not said whether the ICC has attached any deadline of its own to the process. No other verified newsroom had reported the committee’s remarks at the time of writing.
